A reader comments:
Wow, for those opposed to T-cap, wait until you get a good look at common core and the PARCC assessment. The nightmare is about to get worse. As a teacher, I have been working with the debut of common core in Tennessee this year. I don’t even know where to begin to express my frustration with the entire common core movement. It combines an exceptionally narrow curriculum with testing that is vague and open to interpretation (when our group of 6 teachers scored student work we frequently came up with three different scores). The narrow focus of common core does not coincide with the broad based knowledge required for ACT/SAT testing. So until they get all testing aligned, students caught in the middle are screwed. (I have one of these students)
The PARCC assessment is proposing to do away with students accommodations (for students with disabilities) because it invalidates the test! So we now have TESTING dictating what accommodations a special education student may receive. All students besides the very most severe will be expected to sit in front of a computer and take the test. If a special education student didn’t have a disability they wouldn’t need accommodations!
The worst crime of state assessments is that they they fail to recognize the individuality of learning. Students have brains that mature at different rates, learn at different rates, learn in different ways, and benefit from testing in different ways.
It is all insane!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
To fail kids and have them repeat a year based on a test or anything else is unethical. This clearly leads to kids feeling too old to ever graduate in their later school years. And they drop out.
To let kids slide by without learning is also unethical. Those who blossom later end up unprepared after school.
But this is the only two options the current system has. And that is immoral. Systemic change is necessary. Take kids from where they are!
“Take kids from where they are!”
I couldn’t agree more. It’s the only sane approach to teaching. It doesn’t mean you can’t challenge kids to improve and even excel. It just means that you speak to them in terms they can understand, and you don’t set unrealistic expectations. And if you find you’re asking too much of them, you adjust your approach. If you want them to read Orwell, and 1984 is beyond their reach, start with Animal Farm. With “rigorous standards,” there’s no room to adjust.
There’s another problem with “raising the bar.” It ignores the importance of helping kids build on their own strengths and personal interests. If we were truly to take kids as they are and involve them in building their learning capacity in an organic way, there really could be a revolution in education. Standardized, scripted curricula and high-stakes tests, especially the kinds we’re seeing now, will only get in the way.
Tedium and stress are already taking a huge toll. Take kids from where they are, and they’ll be a lot more likely to smile.
Amen to Tennessee Teacher. It really is insane. It is also cruel and heartless. Education should never, ever be like this.
How can a testing consortium dictate special education policy? This is not insane, it is criminal.
Not providing accommodations for special ed students is ridiculous.
I’ve tired of hearing about “instructional shifts” for ELA Common Core. I’ve taught high school English for thirteen years and text-dependent questions have always been integral to my course. Moreover, I’ve never seen a high school English curriculum that promotes little, if any, reader-response/”how do you feel about . . .?” questions. Of course, such questioning can be meaningful at times, particularly in conjunction with other types and rooted in the students’ understanding of what they’ve read.
Here’s a link to some PARCC assessment samples for English 10: http://www.parcconline.org/samples/english-language-artsliteracy/grade-10-elaliteracy
A number of my students are struggling readers. They would struggle with the Ovid piece, not because of the questions but because of the level of vocabulary.
Is this really a passage that 10th graders should be reading independently:
“Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Daedalus and Icarus
But Daedalus abhorred the Isle of Crete–
and his long exile on that sea-girt shore,
increased the love of his own native place.
“Though Minos blocks escape by sea and land.”
He said, “The unconfined skies remain
though Minos may be lord of all the world
his sceptre is not regnant of the air,
and by that untried way is our escape.”
This said, he turned his mind to arts unknown
and nature unrevealed. He fashioned quills
and feathers in due order — deftly formed
from small to large, as any rustic pipe
prom straws unequal slants.”
Part of the comprehension problem is that it’s not even a good translation. I just read this in the original Latin with my juniors, even though the College Board eliminated Ovid from its AP syllabus a couple of years ago (abruptly enough to distupt many schools’ Latin curricula, and without consulting any Latin teachers).
No, I don’t think so. If a student was already familiar with the story of Icarus, she could do okay with it. But with a cold reading?
I don’t understand why grade-level ELA tests don’t use passages from writers typically covered in that grade. If the English 11 practice tests I received are any indication, a student would be lucky to encounter more than one passage from a well-known American writer.
The problems with this sample from PARCC go beyond the inappropriate reading level. The passage titled “Dedalus and Icarus” concludes with about thirty lines that tell the story of Perdix, the nephew of Dedalus, who tried to kill the boy out of jealousy but whose life was saved when Athena turned him into a partridge. It would be easy for a student to confuse the story of Icarus with the story of Perdix. In fact, the two stories are intertwined in mysterious ways, but the sample questions represent a very superficial reading of the passage as a whole. Students who can make it through the maze of poetry are rewarded with a vapid thematic question about the “vanity and immaturity of youth.” Maybe the Perdix section of the passage is intended as a simple distraction for the test taker. Otherwise, if the fact that Dedalus had tried to murder his own nephew because the boy showed talent as an inventor isn’t worth asking about, then why include that section in the passage?
This PARCC sample doesn’t just present an overly complex text for the average tenth grader. It also ignores the very complexity of that text in its construction of the test questions. Hint to the test maker: There’s evidence in the passage that it’s Dedalus who (knowing how his son would probably behave) was acting selfishly and irresponsibly and is therefore more guilty of his son’s death than was Icarus himself, in his youthful exuberance. Was Dedalus even willing to sacrifice his own son for “the love of his native land”? That’s something worth discussing, but it doesn’t match the glib and too obvious statement of theme that the test wants the student to select. There’s plenty more wrong with the “Dedalus and Icarus” sample. This is just a little taste of what students will be up against.
Now, I can figure out what is being said even though I have know idea what a “sea-girt shore” is and I got that Daedalus was fashioning wings using feathers in order of size but forget the comparison “as any rustic pipe prom straws unequal slants.” Not in a million years would I have looked at that passage and declared it the perfect example of a reading selection made for a tenth grader.
It’s a seventh grade passage in a good private school. If tenth graders can’t get it, then they are nationally average tenth graders, and that ain’t very good. If teachers can’t read it with comprehension cold, they aren’t well enough educated to be seventh grade teachers, let alone tenth grade. Pity though.
J. H. Underhill
Harlan,
That wouldn’t have been a 7th grade reading selection in the “private” elementary school that I attended (Catholic parochial in St. Louis). Maybe it wasn’t a “good” one. But then that was back in the one of those “golden” eras of education-1967-8.
Although I have a tendency to agree with you on the teacher aspect of this, I’m not sure that all teachers are familiar enough with ancient Greek literature (I know I’m not but had no trouble figuring the passage out even though it, to me, is quite oblique).
By the way what is a girt in the building trades? Hint think of girt as part of girth.
I think that the Daedalus story is a wonderful allegory for the corporate reform movement. Too bad the students are Icarus (and the teachers are Perdix).
I’m glad everyone is so well read that they immediately translated sea-girt as sea surrounded. (If they had said sea girded shore, i would have been golden.) I guessed at that with context since I knew Crete is an island even without them telling me (isle). No one has tackled “as any rustic pipe prom straws unequal slants.” I could assume from the sentence structure that it is drawing a descriptive comparison, so since I understand the main clause I can probably answer any questions they ask on the test. The question now becomes what the purpose was in choosing this passage. What did the test want to examine with the student responses?
Sorry, I mean Daedalus.
Harlan Underhill, do you teach seventh grade in a “good private school?”
This may be a useful question on a “test” for some purposes. But when these tests have certificates/degrees and graduation applied it is totally inappropriate; therefore, (read: not valid) ETS had taught us some good staff development work on standard setting that was useful when having teachers grade their students; it also used well known standardized test such as IOWA and SRA that had been around long enough to have some proven validity. Using the published tests was sensible but there were some very elitist opinions that took over the development of “new” tests without any research or validity behind them and the purpose was to prove that public schools were “failing” and it was the teacher’s fault. That has been a meme since Sputnk; if we don’t change fast enough the teachers are to blame. But to get back to testing, I am convinced that I can still use the Nelson Denny test as a measure of reading comprehension even if someone says it is “too old” because it correlates with SAT. So I am agreeing with the comment that we need external validity and we need to have some agreement on standards (as ETS maintained). Staff development where 3 or 4 or 5 teachers score the same essay indicates inter-rater reliability when it comes to English language arts. Reliability and validity of the tests I am familiar with I feel comfortable with. I am not comfortable with this constant rebuilding of tests in terms of reliability and validity. I also think the tests I have used in the past (even if you call them old) have predictive validity in most cases (based on my purpose for choosing the test) and following a student’s trajectory through grades (this is very difficult to cf. Stanovich and I wrestle with it because the tools we have available even with Rasch scores because of complexities) . This whole test building /creating is elitist in the sense that is competitive and “owned” by corporations who all have something to sell merchandise. That is a different purpose from deciding who is a “certified” graduate . Creating new tests every 5 years does not build a curriculum or a professional staff; but I have argued that repeatedly in special education that we cannot build curriculum one child at a time and I have gotten a lot of flack for that, also.
As a Tennessee parent, I am concerned about this test being administered on a computer. We do not have enough laptops to accomplish this and our school budget is already stretched thin especially in Shelby County with the school merger. Will the need for computers result in yet another round of teacher cuts?
I cannot accept the fact that in my professional lifetime we are going full-circle from bake sales and car washes for special education services, the Mills Case, PL 94-142, IDEA and back to …..the Mills Case? Class action suits? Where are the attorneys?
Professionals of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) have not spoken up for children with disabilities; not fought against the misguided and absolutely inhumane treatment of our most vulnerable students. Why are we allowing corporate takeover by rolling over and not standing up for humanity and decency? I suspect that corporate $$$ are so huge that no one has a chance in Hell to take them on or make changes. That is frightening in itself.
Standardization of tests and protecting testing integrity are part of everyday life for education. However, claiming that our SpEd kids should not receive accommodations per their IEP to assure standardization…are they kidding? Kids come first. We cannot stop helping our kids for such nonsense. Why not stop the testing. Out of control and hurting so many. Besides, what is the deal with all the technological outages throughout the US? Standardization…my a**!
In Colorado, PARCC is going to be used. PARCC is asking teachers to participate in writing test items in order to participate in their own demise. How convenient and so dirty.
PARCC does not ask for teachers to write rest items. The test items are written by two testing companies.
This has been developing so long that one would think that the writers of these tests would have a clue about the correct types of questions needed to test the students appropriately. But, no. Why do they throw in so-called high order reading passages to which students haven’t been exposed and, furthermore, will not find interesting of useful in any way? Where do they come up with random passages that are supposedly necessary for a well-rounded education? I am not saying that some of these things aren’t interesting to some students.
However, think of a student who knows all about cars, or dinosaurs, or sewing, or sports, or fashion, or music, or sculpture. There are only so many hours in the day. There are only so many things students can focus upon. What do these tests do to allow students to be individuals and to pursue their interests? Do we really want all kids to know all of this stuff? Will the world really pass them by? I am forever appalled at the test items, the grade levels that are deemed appropriate, and the treatment of all students as “the same”.
In college and career, you only read text that was interesting to you? That is real world?
I made some mashed potatoes to go with the sausage and kraut for dinner tonight. You know the real kind where you peel the potatoes. You know sometimes you peel a good looking potato, no blemishes, smooth skin, and when you cut it open it’s all black inside, virtually useless. Well, any standardized test is that kind of potato!
Testing companies are determined to prove that kids are dumb and teachers are even dumber. The dumber we are, the more $$ they earn. Just follow the money!
This is dysfunctional unhealthy SCHTICK from the EdReformers. Some of these test items are so obscure and far fetched that we should read them on Saturday Night Live. However, it is not funny at all. The obsession to present the oddest test items, makes we wonder how far they will go: require Chinese translation of the Odyssey & the Illiad? Write about the existential experience of IKEA furniture building? Discuss Brunhilde in High German with Low German idioms? Really?
Is there no such thing as grade & age appropriate material to teach and discuss? What are they proving? Sick! Sick! Sick!